Tuesday, December 27, 2005

Roboraptor Walk - Bottle Cap Fix

Some people have Roboraptor's that literally fly across the floor, most can can amble well enough but there are others who can't get their Roboraptor to walk at all. Here are some things to try and at the end of this post, an easy hack to try if you're out of options.

Try brand new, quality, non-rechargeable alkaline batteries.

Walking takes far more power than anything else the Roboraptor does. If the batteries are weak or if they don't put out enough power, then your dinosaur robot won't walk right. Remember, sometimes new batteries are already drained.

Make sure you have tried the two faster walking speeds.

Newer owners frequently forget that the Roboraptor has 3 walking speeds, not one. When he is walking forward, another press of the forward button pushes it to second gear, and one more press puts it into third gear, the fastest walking speed.

Make sure you test your Roboraptor on hardwood or non-slippery linoleum floors.

You need to try this before you decide whether or not your Roboraptor is damaged, or whether it's really because your floor is slippery or your carpet is too mushy to be walked on.

And finally a creative hack that cjbchachacha, one of my Robosapien forum members came up with:

Attach two bottle caps, slippery side down, to the feet of your Roboraptor.

Cjbchacha took two beer bottle caps, turned them upside down, and attached them to the front toes of his Roboraptor using the same soft glue they use to tack photos on to walls. You can see this in the picture he took of his modified Roboraptor's feet. Another member, raed50, also reported success with this technique. I have not tried it yet myself. You can read the full Roboraptor walking thread on the forum for more information. Happy Dino Dancing!

[Note: using a permanent glue that damages the Roboraptor's feet will obviously void your warranty!]